3. Jane Doe
CHAPTER 3
JANE DOE
I ’m moving.
My body is cold, unbelievably cold, and I begin to shiver as I come awake. I’m leaning back against something hard. I open my eyes, eyelids fluttering as the light assaults me. When my vision finally clears, I tilt my face up and see a man’s strong, stubbled jaw, his hard eyes focused straight ahead.
The man is wearing a baseball cap backward, and I’m leaning back against his bare chest as we race down a dirt path. One of his strong arms is banded around my waist, the other holding leather reins.
A horse? I’m on a horse?
The animal jumps, and I hiss as pain shoots through my body. The first real thing I’ve felt in the moments since I first opened my eyes.
The stranger looks down at me, and our gazes hold. Beautiful hazel eyes that somehow seem so kind and harsh all at the same time. “Hang in there, okay?” he says to me, his voice deep. “You’re going to be all right.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure what else to say. Hang in there for what? My body aches, my stomach heavy as though it’s full of stones. I manage to tilt my head forward enough to see that I’m covered in his jacket.
Pain. So much pain.
Panic thrums through my veins. “What happened to me?” I try to sit forward, but the stranger holds me tighter.
His arms feel strong. Good. But the panic mutes whatever comfort he’s trying to offer.
“What happened?” I ask again. Fear shoves the rest of the cloudiness out of my mind, and I’m suddenly very aware of the danger I’m in.
“Stay still,” he orders. “You’re safe now, but we don’t know how extensive the damage is yet. I’m getting you help, okay?”
Help.
Safe.
I close my eyes and nod, obeying him because leaning against him and remaining still is easier than moving.
“Bradyn!” he roars. “Help!”
A dog barks urgently.
We come to an abrupt stop, which jolts me again, and I cry out as agonizing pain shoots through my entire body.
“What is it?” a second man calls back, his tone panicked. He comes into view, tall, muscled—his hazel eyes full of concern. “Who is that?”
“I have no idea. I found her in the creek. She’s been shot.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
Creek? Shot?
I’ve been shot?
“Here, let me help.” Another man steps into view, nearly as tall as the first man, though his hair is darker. He reaches up and pulls me down. Then, as soon as the man who rescued me is off the horse, he takes me back into his arms.
“Ambulance is on the way,” the first man says.
“What happened?” a woman asks. I turn my face to look at her, but my vision is blurry from tears of pain.
“She was shot,” my rescuer replies.
“Let’s get her inside,” the woman says.
“Is Lani nearby?”
“I called her,” the second man says. “She was on her way for dinner already and should be here any minute.”
The man doesn’t reply as he carries me gently, cradling me against his chest. We head up onto a sprawling porch. Warmth envelops me as we step into a house.
“I’m going to lay you down gently, okay?”
“O-okay,” I stammer through chattering teeth. I’m so cold. So unbelievably cold.
“It’s still likely to hurt, so just hang in there, okay?”
I nod, and the man sets me down on a couch, moving slowly so he doesn’t jolt me again. Pain shoots up through my abdomen, and I hiss through clenched teeth, but as I lie still, it begins to subside.
Strangers flow around me in a blur of movement, but my hazel-eyed rescuer is all I can see. All I can focus on. Like a beam of light in the midst of my darkness. He kneels beside me, brushing some of my wet hair from my face. “Who did this to you?” he growls. “Who hurt you?”
“I don’t—I don’t know,” I stammer. I try to remember, but everything is blank. Everything except for this man’s beautiful face when I woke.
“We need to get her dry.” An older woman kneels at my side then removes the large jacket from my body. She quickly undoes a band of white fabric from around my waist then presses a pale-blue towel to my abdomen.
I cry out, pain shooting through me. My body arches off the couch, and I grind my teeth together to keep from screaming as my rescuer’s strong hands grip my shoulders. “Easy,” he says, his voice a low rumble.
My teeth chatter so hard I’m sure they’ll break right out of my mouth. The man grabs a blanket from the back of the couch and pulls it over my chest while someone else drags one down over my legs.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I need to keep pressure on it. I’m Ruth Hunt,” she says. “What is your name?”
“I—” I trail off. What is my name? Panic pushes through the pain. Why can’t I remember? Why don’t I know? “I-I d-d-don’t know my n-n-name.” My heart pounds and I close my eyes to try and block out some of the light. “Why can’t I r-r-remember? Who am I?”
“Easy,” the handsome stranger says again, reaching up to rest his hand on my forehead. The moment he does, a calm washes over me. As though everything will be okay now.
I’m safe.
I open my eyes to stare up at him. How can he calm the storm so easily? Who is he?
“Hey! I’m here!” Another woman pushes through the crowd, and the man pulls away, leaving me lying alone on the couch. I want to call him back. My heart begins to hammer again, and I try to steady my breathing, but the panic is too much.
It’s all too much.
What is happening to me?
The newcomer kneels at my side, her nearly black hair braided back.
The woman’s face is serious as she raises the towel then lifts my shirt and checks the wound on my abdomen. “Is there an exit wound?” she asks.
“I didn’t check,” the man who’d brought me here says from somewhere out of view. “Bradyn called an ambulance.”
“Good.” The woman reaches into her pocket and withdraws a light then holds open my eyelids and shines it in. The brightness leaves me seeing spots. “What’s your name?”
“She said she doesn’t know it,” Ruth answers.
The other woman nods. “She’s likely in shock. My name is Lani. We called an ambulance, but I’m a doctor, okay?”
“O-okay.” I want to ask where the beautiful man went. I want him back here, at my side.
“Do you have any idea what happened to you?” Lani questions.
“No.” I suck in a breath as a fresh wave of pain shoots through me. “He said I was shot?”
“I found her in the creek. She was draped over a fallen branch. Still in the water.”
There he is. Come back. Please. He steps into view, and my heart slows just a bit. Do I know him? Is that why I feel so calm in his presence? But I immediately brush that thought aside. If I knew him, he would know me. Which means he’d know my name.
Unless—did he do this to me?
But that’s another thought I disregard the moment our gazes hold. “Who did this to you?” Would he really ask that if it were him? Would he have tried to save me if he’d been the one to put me in that creek?
My vision blurs, and I close my eyes. I’m so tired.
“I need you to stay with me, okay?” Lani says, gently rubbing my arm. “Stay awake.”
“I’m so tired.”
“I know you are, hon, but I need you awake.”
I try to open my eyes, but they’re heavy. Everything hurts. I just want it to stop hurting.
“Keep her awake,” Lani says.
“I’m so tired,” I say again.
“Stay with me.” The deep voice says as hands gently cup my face. I want to stay with you. But as I try to open my eyes so I can see him, I can’t. And with every passing moment, the voices begin to fade, and a numbness settles over me.
Maybe if I can just linger here long enough, I’ll be okay. Just a few minutes, and everything will come back to me. If only I can remain in this place of peace.
* * *
I come awake slowly. My brain is foggy, my vision a bit blurry. I rapidly blink to clear it and find myself lying in a hospital room full of beeping machines.
How did I get here?
I try to sit up, and pain shoots through my abdomen. I suck in a sharp breath and lie back. The moment I do, the pain subsides. Cold air shoots up my nostrils, thanks to a tube running beneath my nose.
“Easy, you need rest, honey.” A familiar woman comes into view and gently presses me back onto the bed.
“Ruth?” I choke out. That was her name, right?
She smiles softly. “Yes, honey. That’s right. Do you happen to remember your name too?”
I shake my head and lie back down. Whatever drugs they have me on have eased the pain now that I’m lying still. I glance down at my belly. I’m covered by a blanket, so I slowly push it down and gently touch the outside of the gown. Through it, I can feel a thick bandage. “I was shot.”
“Yes. Doctors had to go in and get the bullet out. You were just moved here from recovery about half an hour ago.”
“Who shot me?”
Her mouth flattens in a tight line. “We don’t know, honey, but we’ll get it figured out, okay? You don’t worry about such things right now. You worry about getting rest.”
“Where is the man?”
“What man, honey?” she asks, her eyes full of concern.
“The man with the baseball cap. The one who saved me.”
The concern fades, replaced with understanding. “Oh, Elliot. He and his brothers are combing the ranch, looking for any evidence that could point to what happened to you.”
Elliot. “His name is Elliot?”
She nods, a soft smile replacing the worry. “He’s my son.”
The door opens, so I turn my head as the dark-haired woman I’d seen before—Lani? Was that her name?—walks in, carrying a clipboard and wearing a white coat over light-blue scrubs.
She looks up and smiles. “I see you’re awake.”
“Am I going to live?”
“Yes, you’ll be fine,” Lani assures me. “We were able to get the bullet out and stop the internal bleeding. Do you remember being hit by a car?”
“I was hit by a car?”
“You have a few bruised ribs, as well as a contusion on your right hip. I don’t think the car was going fast, but you were definitely hit. That or you fell off a roof and landed on that one side.”
“Hit by a car,” I repeat again.
“Before you were shot is my guess. We’re not sure how long you were in that water. I’m guessing somewhere around five hours, based on the condition of your skin, but I do know that the only reason you survived is because of it. The cold slowed the bleeding. Otherwise, you probably would’ve bled out before Elliot found you. Honestly, I’m not even sure how you avoided hypothermia. It’s a miracle, that’s for sure.”
Hit by a car and then shot? Who would do that to me? “I would have died?”
She nods. “You don’t remember anything that happened to you?”
I try to think back. To come up with anything that answers her questions, but I come up completely blank. “No. I have no idea.”
She nods in understanding then turns to Ruth. “Mom, can you give us a minute?”
“Of course. I’ll be right outside.” She gently squeezes my foot then leaves. As soon as the door’s closed behind her, Lani sets the clipboard aside.
“What is it?” I ask, her silence only making my anxiety grow.
Lani takes a deep breath. “I want your permission to check you for signs of assault.”
My stomach plummets. “Assault? What?”
“You were found in a party dress with a man’s shirt wrapped around you. The tox screen came back clean, but since you can’t remember anything, I want to make sure.”
“I wasn’t drugged?”
She shakes her head.
“You didn’t do it while I was in surgery?”
“No. It’s invasive, and I won’t perform it without explicit permission. If you don’t want me to look, I won’t. But the longer we wait, the less likely I’ll be able to tell if you were sexually assaulted. If something happened, then we might be able to pull some DNA. That’s if the water didn’t wash it all away.”
Tears blur my vision. Surely this nightmare won’t get worse, will it? “I don’t feel different.” My stomach rolls at the mere idea. Would I feel different? Surely I would, right?
“It’s totally up to you,” she says softly. “No pressure from me at all. I cannot even begin to imagine how confused you are, and the last thing I want to do is be pushy. It’s completely your call.”
I swallow hard then nod.
She reaches down and squeezes my hand gently. “I’ll come back in and do it in just a few. Right now, there’s a deputy from the sheriff’s department here, and he wants to speak with you.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll get you taken care of, okay?”
Unable to stomach saying the word ‘okay’ even one more time when I feel anything, I simply nod.
“Come on in, Gibson,” she calls out.
The door opens, and a man wearing a brown and black sheriff’s uniform strolls in, notepad in hand. His brown eyes are friendly as he offers me a hesitant smile. “Ma’am,” he says. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“I don’t know how helpful I’ll be. I don’t even remember my own name.”
“We can get all of that figured out.” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a device that looks like an oversized cell phone. “With your permission, I’ll scan your fingerprints; then we’ll run them through our database, see what pops.”
“Yes, please.” Eager to find out who I am, I offer him my right hand. He quickly scans my fingerprints by pressing them onto the glass screen then shoves the device back into his pocket.
“I’ll let you know if we find anything.” He makes a note on his pad. “Now, can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
“I remember waking up and seeing Elliot. Right after he found me.”
“Not anything prior to that?”
I shake my head.
“That’s okay,” Lani insists. “Sometimes a traumatic event can cause memory loss.”
“Will it come back?” I ask Lani.
Her expression is one of hope. “I’m hopeful it will. But only time will tell.”
The officer makes a few notes on his notepad then puts it back into his pocket. “Until then, ma’am, we’ll do everything we can to find out who you are and what happened to you.”